The invention disclosed herein maintains a level of human comfort within a dwelling by employing the forced movement of air. When temperatures are warm, this artificial breeze aids in feeling cooler as the breeze passes over one's body.
A preferred embodiment of the invention is a ceiling fan. The job of any fan is to convert the motion of the fan, typically the motion of flat pitched blades, into movement of air. The prior art employs blades rotated by motor which causes the movement of air to create an artificial breeze.
Since the middle of the 20th Century systems such as central air-conditioning were incorporated in dwellings, to control the internal temperature of homes during summer months. Those systems added heating elements to have a singular central system for the home owner. However, limitations in the distribution of the heat or cold produced by these systems have demonstrated that an uneven distribution within a room or enclosed area of a structure lends itself to the addition of a ceiling fan to supplement the circulation of air within those confines for the comfort of the user.
As stated the deficiencies that are part of the heating and or cooling system have been partially addressed by the use of a ceiling fan that obviously increases the movement of air within the confines of a room, the normal operating state of the ceiling fan is for its operation to be continuous. This continuous operation occurs while the heating/cooling system is cycled from operating to its off state.
Another benefit of the prior art bladed ceiling fan is an overall reduction in energy consumption caused by the ability to alter the set temperature of the heating/cooling system to reduce its time of operation yet provide the user the level of comfort with a lower duty cycle of the centralized heating/cooling system.
The known physical property of air lends itself to the supplemental aid of a ceiling fan. To be specific, the fact that cooler air that has a greater density will seek a level lower with warmer air rising. The fan of the prior art will drive down the warmer air at the ceiling level in an attempt to create a higher state of movement within the confines of a room thus an attempt to equalize the distribution of the cool air when the cooling air source system is in use. Most ceiling fans of the prior art incorporate an ability to reverse the flow of air by reversing the direction of rotation of the fan blades. The purpose of the reverse flow is to enhance the distribution of warm air when the central heating feature of the heating/cooling system is being used, during the winter months. During the reverse flow of operation the warmer air at the ceiling is circulated across the ceiling and the desired result is for this movement to create a circulation that distributes the room air with greater equality.
Important to note is that all of the ceiling fans of the prior art attempt to gain the improvements in comfort to the user by moving air parallel to the vertical surfaces of the room and thus perpendicular to the horizontal surfaces of the room. Thus the motion of the air circulation of the prior art is limited to a single column of forced air commonly found at the center of the room, or for lager rooms multiple fans are affixed to the ceiling. For the sake of clarity, we describe a preferred embodiment, a single unit mounted in the center of an average room in a typical single family dwelling.
As previously stated the pitched blade ceiling fan of the prior art forces a singular vertical column of air from the ceiling downward to the floor.
The prior art uses the movement of the single vertical column of air to strike one of the horizontal surfaces of the room thus requiring an abrupt 90 degree turn of that column of air. This, in turn creates inefficient turbulent air flow. Accordingly, the prior art is deficient in attempting to efficiently circulate the air and equalize or homogenize the natural hot and cold layers.
There is an alternative fan design. In its most basic set up, it consists of two flat parallel discs. The discs rotate which will rotate the air mass trapped between the discs. Centrifugal force acts on the air mass and expels it outward beyond the edges of the discs and into the surrounding air space. If the discs have some sort of pathway to allow new air to take the place of the expelled air then the rotating discs will circulate the air. Thus, rotating discs can circulate the air without the need of traditional fan blades.
The prior art has recognized this structure as a “Tesla turbine,” a “Prandtl layer turbine” or a “disc-type” turbine. This design has been considered useful only in the context of water turbines or high pressure air applications such as in vacuum cleaner motors or jet engine turbines.
The Tesla turbine was considered impractical in the context of a room fan because at the standard air pressure of one atmosphere, it was thought, a Tesla turbine simply could not move a sufficient volume of air without being impractically bulky. The device would have required far too many discs, each disc being far too large and the discs would have to rotate at too high an RPM to be practical.
Surprisingly, the current inventors have found a practical design for a disc type fan operable at standard atmospheric pressures. Indeed, as will be seen by one skilled in the art the disclosed invention the disc type fan is not only practical, but it improves on prior art fan systems.